Chapter 74: Revaluating a Situation (Patreon)

I appeared back in Yakeshi’s garden. Or at least my consciousness did. Time could move differently in these places, but I knew that inevitably I would be sent back into the burning tavern. The portable shrine hadn’t bought me an escape. Only a temporary reprieve.

I hoped it would be enough.

The first thing I noticed when entering the garden was that it was empty. It didn’t concern me at first, but as I checked the small house and the grounds in front of it, I became worried.

The god wasn’t here.

That was odd. I was under the impression that the shrines were just requests that had to be accepted to bring a person to their domain. So Yakeshi had allowed me to come here even though he was absent? What was the point supposed to be?

I went back over the house and grounds, this time looking for some kind of note or message. There was nothing. Perhaps he intended for me to create my own lesson for being here? Well with little else to do, I sat under the tree I’d seen him meditate under. I hadn’t really had much time to practice it myself, so I figured I’d give it a try.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing. It was oddly quiet on the mountaintop, which was more of a hindrance than a benefit. Meditation was hard. My mind would keep pulling me back to the tavern. I’d worry about Hugo and how he’d fare in that place without me. Then I worried about Elise and Hemi and what they’d do. They had no residential access without me and no tower key. Would they lose guest privileges if I died? Would the System kick them out onto the street?

The ground started shaking.

Oh thank god, I can finally get out of my own head.

Despite feeling grateful for the distraction, I quickly hopped away from the tree. At first, I feared that I’d angered the god in some way by trying to emulate him. But looking around told me that he still wasn’t here. Other things had changed though. The sky had grown darker with an emerging storm. Thunder clapped and streaks of lightning shot through the clouds.

In one of the lightning flashes, a figure became visible. A man floating high in the air. He was too far away to make out all of the details, but it was unmistakably Yakeshi.

There was another rumble beneath the earth as he shot forward to strike at something within the clouds.

It was incredible. I could feel the weight of his attacks from all the way down here. I wonder what it is he’s fighting?

There were moments where he’d disappear and then reappear in another part of the sky, which made me realize he was moving too fast for my eyes to follow. Each time a rumble beneath my feet would alert me that he’d moved again.

This went on some more until suddenly, Yaskeshi flew backwards until he was floating in the air, just fifty feet above the house.

He looked the same as ever, so it didn’t appear to be a retreat due to injuries. Had he flown back here for my benefit? To put on some kind of demonstration?

As if to say yes, Yakeshi pointed his sword up at the sky. I looked at where he was pointing and saw an orange light in the clouds, growing larger as it bolted towards him. Eventually, it broke through the clouds and I saw him.

Yakeshi’s enemy appeared to be a muscular tiger man wearing some kind of leather armor and wielding a golden Bo staff. The orange light I’d seen earlier was because his entire body was also wreathed in fire.

As soon as he reached Yakeshi, he slammed one end of his staff down, aiming to crush the god’s head. Yakeshi's sword was there in a blink to block it.

He made the block seem casual, but the shockwave that reverberated when the two weapons collided almost made me want to run. It felt like an earthquake and I wondered how much of this the mountaintop could take.

They continued to fight, and I kept reminding myself that this was a magical place. A place of a god. I’m sure it would take a lot more than this to destroy it. There was another reason I stayed, though. Now that they were more visible, I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.

The tiger man struck blows with a rage and a passion that seemed unyielding. Each end of the staff becoming a blur of attacks that I struggled to follow. Meanwhile Yakeshi, was as calm and patient as ever. His movements were more fluid and efficient as he blocked each attack with his sword.

Neither seemed to have landed a hit on the other, yet they did not appear to be equals. In fact, Yakeshi looked so composed that I wondered if he might have even been a little bored. Though considering he made no move to attack the tiger man made it seem like he was prolonging the fight.

The tiger seemed to sense this too and realized that he wasn’t breaking through the god’s defenses so easily. He decided on a new strategy of distracting his opponent by attacking me.

Before I could react, the tiger man flew back while pointing the end of his staff at me. A blue beam of fire erupted from it. The beam was so large that it wouldn’t just kill me but incinerate the mountaintop entirely.

I watched frozen in place as it barreled towards me. There was no time for anything else. I wasn’t sure if I could die here or not, but the beam carried without a power and presence that screamed death to all it touches.

Before it could reach me, a purple translucent barrier appeared over the entire mountain. It blocked the beam and while the tiger man was distracted, Yakeshi struck, decapitating the man with a single sword stroke.

As soon as he’d died, the beam attack ended, and the barrier faded away.

The god floated softly to the ground and unceremoniously threw the body and head of his enemy over the side of the mountain. He then returned to sit at his spot under the tree and asked me, “Well, what did you learn?”

“Don’t split your focus when attacking an enemy?” I guessed.

He shook his head and stared until I said, “I don’t know. Be the strongest god?”

“That wasn’t a god. That was a grade S with delusions of grandeur. The distraction was not what caused his downfall, only a moment so egregious that it simply couldn’t be ignored. Now what else?”

“Challenging you, since you’re a higher grade than him?”

“No. He was at the peak of grade S and I myself had killed a god at that rank a long time ago. No, the problem was not his ambition. It was that he did not adequately prepare for me. He simply assumed he was superior and swaggered into my home with all the bravado of a child who’s just stolen one of his parent’s swords. Knowing one’s enemy before you engage in battle is often more important than anything else.”

I suppressed a groan. “This is about me rushing into the tavern, isn’t it?”

“Contrary to popular belief, most gods don’t have their eyes glued to the tower the entire time, and there are many such as myself who cannot pierce the tower’s walls at all.”

“So how did you…”

“I get glimpses of your experiences through reading your aura whenever you come here.”

This aura stuff was becoming more of a problem by the minute. First, subtle hypnotic suggestion and now my thoughts and memories are on display. I had to find a way to stop this from happening.

“Aura shielding should not be your first concern,” he said, reading me like an open book. “Instead, let’s go back to that unstable environment in the tavern. You have two opponents coming at you. The swordsman and the chain man. Which do you focus on?”

“The chain man. If he gets that second chain around my other hand, then I’m done for.”

“Wrong on both counts. Tell me, how did the chain man bind you?”

“He threw a chain around my wrist and then pulled it tight.” I frowned. I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

Yakeshi stared and patiently waited as I reconsidered who the biggest danger was. The swordsman was the greater threat because he could kill me quickly with his sword, whereas the chain man can only bind me. Not ideal, but not as bad as having twelve inches of steel shoved through my chest. Something else occurred to me then too.

“If the chain man successfully binds my other hand, then he’ll be stuck holding the chains,” I said. Yakeshi nodded to say that I should continue. “His chains are limited to trapping me and once he uses both, he’ll be stuck too.”

I’d incorrectly seen the chain man as the greater threat because the immobilizing power in his chains had frightened me and made him seem more imposing than he actually was. I thought more about how I’d deal with the situation in the tavern once I got back and annoyingly Yakeshi nodded. “Yes, that is a good plan for your problem.”

I was about to ask if I could leave when had some final words of wisdom to impart.

“You need to start practicing your powers outside of combat. Carry the blood of your enemies with you if you're worried about losing energy. You have learned much from throwing yourself into fighting, but training has its advantages too.”

I nodded and told him I would before I suddenly woke up back in the burning tavern.